Open and Closed Source Systems Essay

The GNU General Public License has served a major role in the way people think of programs today. The GNU, or simply GPL is originally written by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The case is, most software’s don’t want you to share or change the program. This means that they are trying to take away freedoms of having the program. What the GNU General Public License is designed to do is the opposite of that because it offers freedom to share and change the software and to make sure it is free for all of its users. This creation caused it to be the most widely used free software license.

As of August 2007 the GPL accounted for nearly 65% of the 43,442 free software projects listed on Freshmeat. Some believe that the copyleft provided from the GPL was crucial to Linux’s Success because it gave programmers who contributed to the kernel the assurance that the work done by them would benefit the world and remain free. After the first version of the GPL, more were made that followed. The first GPL was made in 1989. After that, another version was made with similar licenses but there was concern over problems in the GPLv2 so they made another one in June 2007.

Preamble The General Public License was designed so that it meant that the people won’t think of a free software as related to its price but more to freedom. What this means is that people can do almost anything to the program including, making copies, giving away copies, selling the program, and either turning the original program into something that is better. What this license includes in its preamble is; each distributer must know that there is no warranty for this free library. With this license, comes great responsibilities for handling this.

One example of this would be if you were tried to sell the program that you copied, you will have to tell them all their terms so they know their rights. The protection of a person’s rights is split into two sections; the first is you cope the library then second, you get offered this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute, and or modify the library. Terms and Conditions There are many terms and conditions that you have to go by while using this license because if you don’t go by them, there could be real harm.

A library is a collection of software functions and or the data prepared so it can link with other application programs. You are only allowed to modify copies of the library if you show that you modified the library, you must make sure that there is no charge to third parties for the work to be licensed and you have to show them their terms to make sure they know their rights. If the license isn’t signed then you are not allowed to modify, copy or sell anything from a library because it’s prohibited by the law unless you have signed the license.

If you create any attempts to copy, modify, sublicense, link with or distribute the library without this license, then you are prohibited from ever getting it and the library will be void. GNU Conclusion This idea that was released by Richard Stallman was brilliant in many ways. One major way it was important was it allowed people to sell programs for free and let people try them and not be controlled by companies. Freedom is important not the price of the program.

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